


Give Up

by umiyuki



Category: Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-29
Updated: 2012-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umiyuki/pseuds/umiyuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He’s always been the one everybody loved.  Not you.  Never you.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give Up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thelittleone (beautybedamned)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautybedamned/gifts).



> Contains spoilers for episode 48.

You want what he has so badly it fucking _hurts_.

He’s always been the one everybody loved. Not you. Never you.

AkaRed had never looked at _him_ with eyes that said _I know what you are_.

He’d never have understood, even if you’d told him about the way AkaRed was betraying you both.

You’d never wanted to leave him in the first place, how could you, he was your _brother_. You’d never had a brother before.

You hardly even know why you want the keys, the great powers, any of it. It’s not like they’ll do anything for you. The one time you’d found the set of five Mobirates and tried turning a key in one of them...

Nothing had happened.

You’d known right then that they weren’t for you and never would be. They were for _Marvelous_. Not you. Never you.

And AkaRed was having you risk your life for these things, knowing what you were and that the keys were never going to do anything for you. It made you so furious you couldn’t stand it.

“In order to get something, you have to give something up.” That’s how you’ve always seen the world. You give up AkaRed, and more importantly, give up Marvelous, shoot your brother in the shoulder because you couldn’t bring yourself to aim a few inches to the right and shoot him in the heart.

(Didn’t he know you’d never miss a shot like that? Hadn’t he seen your sharpshooting skills before, wouldn’t he have realized you never wanted to kill him?)

You give up the only person you’ve ever been able to call a comrade, in order to get...

In order to get what?

That’s the worst thing: you don’t even know what it is you’re trying to get anymore.

You’d tried to steal the keys that first time out of spite toward AkaRed, and all that keeps you going after them now is the traces of that spite. You’ll steal all the keys, all the great powers, and that’ll show him. All those precious keys that he was never going to share with you would be yours, and you’d laugh in his face because that was what he got for daring to try to use you like that.

It feels so goddamned hollow, though, when you see Marvelous with his new comrades, happy and fulfilled and _loved_.

Truth be told, you want him back, want to hear him say that you were his brother. That he misses you. But you’re so far down your spiteful path that you can’t stop.

You want him to want you back enough to stop you. You want him to understand why you did any of this in the first place. You’d hoped that maybe, when you revealed your other form and told him that even AkaRed had been afraid of you, he’d figure it out. _I get it now_ , you want him to say, _I get it, just stop, you don’t have to do this anymore. Come back, we can still fix this._ Because if Marvelous has room in his heart for all those strays he’s picked up in the years since you’ve seen him, surely he has room for you.

But he doesn’t get it, just looks at you with the same fear that AkaRed had, and something small and fragile inside you dies. You know right then, deep down, that it’s over. He’s never going to understand.

You try, one last time, by telling him what AkaRed had been doing, and he just looks at you and says, “Do you think that matters to me now?” Because the Akaki Pirates are _over_ for him, he’s moved on and found a new crew while you’re still stuck in the past on a mission you took on out of spite.

He’s determined to settle things, you can see that. He wants a fight to the death. You’d never wanted any of this, but you’re not about to deny him. Your shooting is as sharp as ever, and this time you don’t hesitate at all to aim straight for his heart and pull the trigger.

And for a moment you are so sure you’ve won.

You get to your feet, broken and bleeding but still alive, and look at him there, prone and still in the dirt, and it almost feels like a victory.

But then he opens his eyes and slowly sits up, and all you can do is stare in disbelief as he reaches into his coat and pulls out a piece of that pendant you’d given Sally, with your last bullet embedded in the center.

_A charm to keep you safe_ , you’d said, hanging it around her neck just before unloading half a cartridge of bullets into her.

(Didn’t she know it was what you had to do? Hadn’t you told her you were going to reward her when she came back, wouldn’t she have realized that you never wanted to kill her?)

And then she’d chosen Marvelous because they always choose Marvelous. Not you. Never you.

“So that’s how it is,” you say, and suddenly you are just so fucking _tired_ of it all. You’ve come to the end of yourself. You just want everything to stop.

And in order to get something, you have to give something up.

So you give up on living, because it never got you much anyway, and in return, you get an ending.


End file.
